It only seems like yesterday that I walked across this area in training for doing the Cape To Cape walk. At that time it was just me, some sandy bush tracks, kangaroos and unfortunately some illegal dumping. Since that time it's been cleared, levelled, built on and populated.
The new housing estate is named after the Catalina flying boat which was an unsung hero of World War 2. The British RAF supplied Qantas with five Catalina flying boats in 1943 in order to service a route between Perth and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) after Singapore fell to Japan, isolating Australia from Britain by the conventional route. It was to be the world's longest regular non-stop service – a total distance of 5632km (3520 miles). The weight of fuel limited the Catalina's load to only three passengers and 69kg of diplomatic and armed forces mail. The flying boats travelled at 160 miles an hour.
This extraordinary, top secret, civilian service made 271 crossings of the Indian Ocean with no loss of life, continuing right through to the end of the war. In the process they delivered 860 high priority government and military passengers, large quantities of microfilmed mail, and urgent war-related freight – a major contribution to the war effort.
These Catalinas were completely defenceless, carrying no weaponry, and with all armour plating removed so that the planes were sufficiently light to make the long crossing of more than 6480 km. In order to remain undetected by the Japanese, they flew by night using celestial navigation and without radio, except for a very brief midnight weather bulletin in Morse code. The average length of the flights was 28 hours. Because the journey was made by night, the crew and passengers saw the sun rise twice, hence the name 'Double Sunrise' service.
The Double Sunrise service still holds the record for the longest non-stop commercial air route and the record for the longest ever non-stop commercial flight – 32 hours 9 minutes. The last Double Sunrise flight departed from Sri Lanka for Perth on 17 July 1945.